Tag Archives: Florida

Happy New Year from sunny Jacksonville, Florida where I’m currently employed at the Alhambra Theatre & Dining playing Buddy in Come Blow Your Horn.

It’s a gem of a comedy by Neil Simon and happens to be the first one he ever wrote, about two brothers desperately trying to escape the overbearing thumb of their businessman father. Buddy is the youngest of the two. He is an aspiring playwright who’s just turned twenty-one and wants nothing more than to emulate his older brother’s swinging, bachelor life. Of course the play is hilarious but it has the right amount of dramatic heart-to-hearts to keep it deeply engaging.

In fact, that’s why I love Neil Simon and know when he’s on the money, boy is it a good night at the theatre. Since plays like Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple and Biloxi Blues are among my favorites, knowing that Come Blow Your Horn was first is a real treat. Within these lines you see the blue prints of what was to come – the arguments between Alan and Buddy scream Oscar and Felix, the relationship between Alan and his girlfriend Connie is basically that of Paul and Corrie, and there is even an offstage character named Felix Ungar! It’s all right there, blended into its own unique one-liners.

The play opens this week at the Alhambra Theatre & Dining, which happens to be the nation’s longest running professional dinner theatre, opening in 1967. The fact that I’m getting to play on a stage shared by Sid Caesar, Omar Sharif and Betty Grable (among many many others) is deeply inspiring. Additionally, since I am in Florida after all, my family and friends are able to see it and I’m able to relish a sense of homecoming. I’m incredibly thankful to be in the position I am now with the cast and crew of the Alhambra.

They’re breaking legs left and right at Gateway High School’s drama department.

It has been a winning year for students from acting Troupe 4061, which has won an award in every competition it has entered since the beginning of the school year. Now, the troupe is preparing for the year’s climax: a pair of performances at the Florida State Thespians competition in April.

Drama teacher Donald Rupe said he saw potential in his students; enough to have a good year in the drama competition circuit, but the accolades the group has received weren’t completely unexpected, either.

“I’m thankful, but I’m not surprised,” Rupe, a 2003 Gateway graduate, said.
In December, the troupe competed with 25 schools from around Central Florida, and was selected as one of five to take its one-act play, “Woman at a Threshold, Beckoning,” to be judged for April’s Florida State Thespians competition in Tampa, the first time the school has had the opportunity.

Last month during the District Individual Events Competition, the school won three best-in-show awards – the competition’s highest accolade – for acting and set design. The school also won awards in more categories than any other school in the district that makes up most of the Central Florida area.
For April’s state competition, the troupe also will perform “A Few Good Men” twice to audiences of more than 2,000. The play about military lawyers who uncover a conspiracy while defending a group of soldiers is one of six plays to be performed by schools from around the state, and it will be the third time a school from Osceola County takes the main stage at the competition. The first time was during Rupe’s senior year at Gateway.
The schools selected to perform at the state competition are usually established performing arts schools, Rupe said.
“It’s a huge deal,” he said.
And for the students, the class provides them a workload lighter than the usual math or science course, but still requires them to memorize lines and “break a leg” once they hit the stage.
It’s not an easy class, because what we do, it’s actually a lot,” Vincent Hannam, drama club president, said. “But it’s generally relaxing … it’s a fun atmosphere.”

Hannam, a fourth-year drama student who’s also in Gateway’s International Baccalaureate theater program, said he’s trained himself to focus on the people watching him. “I’m saying the words, but I’m also looking at the audience, trying to get the feel from them,” he said. Hannam received excellent and superior ratings in two pieces he performed during January’s district competition. “I’m just thinking about how they’re going to react,” he said.
Senior Luis Penedo has only been in Rupe’s class since last year, but said acting has given him the opportunity to learn more about himself. He, along with Hannam, will perform in April’s production of “A Few Good Men” at the state competition. “I wasn’t as shy anymore,” Penedo said. “I just try to be confident.”
Rupe, who’s been directing theater since high school, said the class not only gives students a rewarding experience, but also an outlet for him. “Obviously, I like to see the smiles on their faces, but I also like to do my art,” he said. “Everybody gets something out of it.”